Home front is true front line

To hear Wendy Bousima tell it, she doesn't care that her relationship with her mother has been rocky for most of her teenage years.

But as the 17-year-old explains how her mother doesn't trust her, and how it's so hard for the two to talk, huge tears begin to fall from the girl's dark eyes.

"We don't really talk about serious things," Bousima said. "It's weird. We talk, but we don't really connect about anything personal. That's why I keep things from her."

As a family goes, in many cases, so goes the roller-coaster, emotional life of a teenager.

The Center for Family Studies at Brigham Young University has one of the largest number of family scholars in the nation and provides advice and research on the family.

"Perhaps the only thing more difficult than being a teenager is parenting one," reads the title of a recent paper from the center.

"While hormones, the struggle for independence, peer pressure and an emerging identity wreak havoc in the soul of the adolescent, issues of how much autonomy to grant, how much 'attitude' to take, what kind of discipline is effective, which issues are worth fighting about, and how to talk to offspring-turned-alien challenge parental creativity, patience, and courage," it reads.

Amen, say parents of teenagers interviewed by the Deseret Morning News as part of "The State of Teens" series.

Chris Turner, mother to 16-year-old Jessica, keeps communication as open as she can, talking to her daughter about any subject and listening as much as she can.

"I just try to provide a grounding place for her," Chris said of her daughter, a Bingham High junior. "It seems to be working so far."

Kasey Payzant is mom to Tobin Story, 15, who just finished ninth grade at Butler Middle School in Sandy.

She steals little bits of travel time in the car to talk to her son about important subjects. "And then I sit back and think, will he recall that conversation when he really needs it? Did he hear what I was saying?"

According to a paper published by the BYU Center for Family Studies, Payzant and Turner are on the right track.

Parents should concentrate on a three-pronged approach to parenting teens, according to the paper.